Partners
by Ttime42
Summary: Sherlock & John have their roles, both at home and on the field. Friendship, mild power dynamics. Gen, but can be pre-slash.
1. Chapter 1

John crouched in the corner of the dilapidated old abandoned house, waiting for Sherlock's signal. They had been tailing their quarry—a serial burglar by the name of Nigel McQueen—for _hours_. The suspect was like a ninja, always a half step ahead. They'd nearly had him on the Tube an hour ago, but he'd evaded them both, leading the pair on a merry chase through the city. They'd taken Sherlock's rooftop shortcuts, naturally, and had managed to corner Nigel in this house—fenced off to the public because of a collapse warning and condemned to be destroyed. A breeze, cool and briny, blew off the nearby river. The house creaked loudly and John hoped it wouldn't cave in.

John was tired and he'd landed funny on his ankle following Sherlock over the roofs. He'd also shoved the man out of the way of a careening car, nearly getting run over himself. Fortunately, the car hadn't hit him, but the tires had sprayed him with an impressive amount of mud and oily muck. Now John was filthy and tired and his ankle had an intermittent throb. He stayed crouched though, and waited for Sherlock's signal. The sooner they caught this moron and passed him to Scotland Yard, the faster they could go home. John held his breath as the detective crept across the floor on the opposite side of the room. He was still somehow clean and mud-free, the bastard. John could just barely make out his shape in the shadows and the moonlight streaming through the broken windows and holes in the walls. McQueen was on the first floor, and they needed to get down there without alerting him. Sherlock raised his arm towards John, beckoning him to come. John stood, silently, and stepped forward, carefully picking his way across the crumbly ground. Sherlock took two steps forward…and crashed through the floor, disappearing with a loud _bang _and a yell.

"Sherlock!" John yelped, startled. Something thudded downstairs—no doubt Nigel running away—and John flew down the steps as fast as he could with his sore ankle, his thoughts with his flatmate. Fortunately, Sherlock had landed on an old sofa. Unfortunately, there were no cushions and most of the metal springs were poking menacingly out of the ripped fabric. Sherlock winced and hissed and stood up slowly, the springs clinging and tearing at his clothes.

"Hurt?" John breathed, glancing him over. It was hard to tell in the dark and with the coat.

"Fine." Sherlock said with a grimace. John knew he wasn't fine. His shirt and trousers were slashed and rivulets of blood were staining the fabric. "Come on, John. He's getting away." Sherlock's voice was half command, half excited and John dutifully hurried after him into the night. They ran out the back garden and saw the guy sprinting up the empty street, his silhouette rapidly shrinking in the moonlight. Sherlock took off running. John gave his ankle a mental apology and ran as well as he could after him. It didn't hurt too badly. Compared to getting shot, this was nothing.

They ran, gaining on Nigel—he must be hurt too—until they came to the banks of the river. Up ahead, John saw Sherlock slip on the sudden muddy ground and fall right on his arse. He grunted and John darted past, still pursuing the suspect. He knew Sherlock wouldn't want him to stop. A stitch started to form in his side as the guy ran up some steps and onto a bridge spanning the river.

"Stop chasing me!" Nigel yelled.

"Stop running!" John yelled back. He crested the stairs and saw McQueen stopped a good thirty yards in front of him, looking winded and irritated. John, glad for the reprieve, decided this shit had gone on long enough. He pulled out his pistol and leveled it at the man, thrilled he'd thought to bring it with.

"Not fair." He called, raising his arms.

"It wasn't fair of you to rob all those people, Nigel." John countered, slowly walking closer to the man.

"Aw, c'mon, it was just a bit of fun."

"Fun?" John said. He heard Sherlock behind him, breathing hard, and he felt pleased he was able to stop the suspect by himself.

"Easy, John." Sherlock rumbled behind him. John paused. "He may have a gun too."

"It looks like you got me." Nigel called, nonchalantly walking backwards as the pair advanced.

"Looks like." Sherlock said. "Why don't you just turn yourself in and we'll call it a night?"

Nigel stopped beside the railing on the bridge and slowly lowered his hands.

"Nah, I don't think so." He vaulted himself over the railing and was gone.

"Wait!" John yelled.

"Oh no you don't!" Sherlock ran three steps and flung himself over the railing as well.

The bridge wasn't _too_ high, and John ran to the edge, hearing the immense _splash_ as Nigel McQueen, then Sherlock landed in the icy Thames. He peered over the edge into inky blackness.

"Sherlock!" He screamed. Nothing.

Cursing, John grabbed his mobile and dialed the police.

* * *

tbc...


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for the kind words, reviewers! Here's the second and final part.**

* * *

"Idiot!" John hissed at Sherlock when he was pulled, soaking, shivering and satisfied, out of the river.

"What? Why?" Sherlock seemed genuinely confused. He smirked as the officers retrieved their serial burglar. Nigel glared at John and Sherlock with loathing, but John didn't care about him anymore.

"Because you could have died!"

"N_o_." Sherlock waved John away as if he had just something completely absurd. A waiting paramedic draped an orange blanket around his shoulders. He pulled it tighter around himself, trembling with the cold and the wet.

"You're soaked to the bone." John said, his tone scolding.

"Yes, I _was _just in the river."

"God knows how may parasites you picked up—did you swallow any water?"

"No John." Sherlock said, annoyed, "I do know not to do that."

"Good. Right. Come on, you're going to hospital." John grabbed Sherlock's soaked sleeve and started tugging him towards the ambulance.

"No."

"Sherlock!"

"No!" Sherlock ground his heels into the soft riverbank. "I don't like hospitals. All the doctors and nurses are idiots."

John pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for strength. "Fine." He said, looking him in the eye, "we'll go home—but I am going to treat you there and you will do _everything_ I say, got it?"

Sherlock huffed. "Fine."

* * *

"First, give me your coat." John pushed open the door and dropped his keys on the table. He turned a light on and Sherlock slid out of the heavy coat with a _squelch_ and held it out, dripping, to John.

He took it and headed for the loo. "We'll need to get it dry-cleaned for sure." John hung it on the shower bar, hoping the bar could take the weight of a sodden, heavy wool coat. "Take your clothes off and meet me in here!" He called. "Bring them with you."

John left the bathroom and went to his room to grab his medical bag. His ankle was throbbing, but he ignored it. Sherlock first.

Happily, Sherlock was waiting for him in just his pants, holding his mass of wet clothes and looking tired.

"Give." John took the pile of clothes and dropped them into the sink, running water over them until they could be washed properly. "Take a hot shower." John said, turning to the sink-full of laundry. Sherlock shucked off his wet pants and stepped into the tub. John was happy at the lack of talk-back he was hearing. He smirked as he swished the mud out of Sherlock's clothes. That was the way of it, wasn't it? John listened to Sherlock on cases, but at home, what John said went. John stood there rinsing the clothes with soap and running water (it reminded him of his army days, doing washing on the fly) the entire time Sherlock showered, not really giving shit if he had a problem with it. He didn't want Sherlock to get ill—a Sherlock suffering from any sort of ailment was not a Sherlock John wanted to live with.

"When did you last have a tetanus jab?" John called over the water. Those metal springs had looked lethal.

"Uh…" Sherlock paused. "I deleted it."

"Okay." John unzipped his bag and grabbed the medicine and syringe, measuring out the correct dose. He slipped on some gloves.

The water shut off. John draped a bath towel over the door, avoiding the wet coat. Sherlock grabbed it.

"You're being quiet." John said.

"Tired and thinking." Sherlock mumbled. He emerged from the shower, the towel around his waist, and froze at the sight of John standing there cheerily holding up the needle and an alcohol pad. He rolled his eyes. "Now that's overkill."

"No way. You fell on that moldy old sofa. Arm, please."

Sherlock grumbled but offered his bare arm to John, who swiped it clean and plunged the medicine into his body, finishing it off with a plaster. Sherlock didn't even flinch.

"Good boy. Sit." John nodded at the closed toilet and Sherlock scowled.

"Not a dog." He growled.

"A dog would have been smart enough to not jump off a bridge into the Thames." John said testily. He grabbed some antiseptic and knelt in front of Sherlock, dabbing some into the cuts on his leg. "But then that dog wouldn't have caught the suspect." John added. He glanced up at a beaming Sherlock. "Good job."

"You didn't do half bad yourself, considering…." Sherlock said, noting the ginger way John held is his ankle.

"It's fine."

"You're filthy." Sherlock seemed to notice the mud on John's clothes and in his hair for the first time.

"Yeah, well, I was following you."

Sherlock stayed quiet, only flinching now and then as the medicine bit. John rubbed arnica gel into the darkening patches of skin, then noticed Sherlock's left wrist swelling impressively.

"Can you bend it?" John asked.

Sherlock did, and grimaced. "I can, but it hurts." John took Sherlock's delicate wrist in his warm hands and gently, expertly felt the small bones.

He pressed an area. "Does this hurt?"

"No."

A new area. "Does this hurt?"

"No."

John squeezed, eliciting a yelp.

"I think it's sprained." John concluded. "Can go for x-rays if you want, but…"

"That's okay…I trust you." Sherlock held the sore limb out to John, pouting. "Fix it."

John smirked, a warm feeling creeping up his neck at Sherlock's admission of trust. Sure, John knew Sherlock trusted him, but it was nice to hear. John wrapped it with a stiff bandage. "No violin until it's better."

Sherlock pouted harder.

"Also, get something cold on there. Up. Turn around."

John glanced over Sherlock's bare torso, mentally noting red areas that would probably bruise, scratches, bumps, and all other manner of injury that would be acquired from falling through a floor, slipping onto one's arse in the mud at least once, and then a plunge into the filthy cold Thames.

"I'm fine, John. You don't need to—"

"No you're not fine."

"Yes I am."

"No you're not." John was in full-on 'doctor mode' and he was _not _going to take any of Sherlock's crap. John turned him around and tugged the towel away.

"Ah—John!" Sherlock yelped.

John glanced at the wide, dark bruise already beginning to form on Sherlock's left buttock and thigh. He tutted. Sherlock must have fallen really hard in the mud.

"John, cover me up this instant!"

"Oh please." John muttered, handing him the towel, "Mister I-walk-around-in-nothing-but-a-bedsheet-on-weekend s is shy? Remember when I saw half your arse at the Palace? Mycroft and Harry saw it too, you didn't seem to care then. Now be quiet and let me work. I've seen enough backsides to last several lifetimes and yours is nothing special, and you're _hurt_, so shut-up Sherlock."

There wasn't any real heat behind the words and Sherlock finally closed his mouth. Whether it was because he was exhausted or because he was allowing John to have this victory (which was really for his benefit anyway, not that he'd tell John that), John was just happy his patient was quiet. In fact, Sherlock seemed to actually relax as John gently rubbed some arnica gel onto the various bruises on his back and pulled the towel back around. He put more antiseptic on the scrapes and checked the bandaged left wrist again for circulation.

John stepped back. "I should really give you some antibiotics." John said. "God knows how many escaped Baskerville experiments are floating around in the Thames."

Sherlock hummed in a noncommittal tone. He looked a hundred miles past exhaustion.

"Alright, I'll meet you in your room and give you the antibiotics, then I'll stop bothering you."

"Fine." Sherlock stumbled out of the loo and towards his bed. John grabbed the pills and followed with a glass of water.

Sherlock had slipped into a soft Tshirt and boxers and more or less collapsed into the mattress, and he lay sprawled like someone had spilled him there. John gave him the pills and water and Sherlock took them without comment.

"Thank you, John." Sherlock muttered into the pillow.

"You're welcome." John patted Sherlock's hip. "Sleep tight." He said, leaving the room.

"Uh-huh. I'll sleep fine, just fine…"

John closed the door after he left and Sherlock glanced up, staring at the closed door for a moment before he glanced down at the plaster. It was festooned with bright cartoon pirates and Sherlock grinned, falling instantly asleep.

End.


End file.
